Monday, August 24, 2009

And after rereading this entry of Ivanlandia, I realized that, no, I have not gotten the name of Nora Ephron’s movie correct.It’s supposed to be Julie & Julia, but I prefer to call it Julia & Julie.C’mon, who’s more important to us food fans?Who should be listed first:Julia Child or Julie Powell?Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

First some gripes:I would have much rather had more sumptuously filmed scenes of plates of foodbeing prepared and servedin glorious Technicolor close-ups than some of the subplots and heavy-handed Republican bashing—for example,It would have been nice to have those 10 minutes spent on the (entertaining, I’ll admit, and certainly character enhancing) subplot about Julia Child’s taller sisterbeing spent on the preparation of the boned duck—called “deboned duck” in the flick, I assume (making an ass of you and me?), because someone at the studio was worried us dummy audiences wouldn’t get it.ORWhen Julie’s boss says (something like), “At least I’m not a Republican,” how come he couldn’t say something less divisive, but similar in tone and spirit, like, “Look, I may be a Republican, but I’m not an asshole” ?

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!More “true” stories adapted to film need to adopt the Magical Realism Mystery Tour approach.Jazz things up a bit, y’know?It also helps skip over the boring, mundane stuff that might interfere with a filmmaker’s trajectory—like Julie Powell’s affair. (Heh-heh…)

Julia & Juliealso follows my (and others) belief that biopics should only cover a specific area of time in the person’s life: that time which truly defines their life, work and/or accomplishments, the time most indicative of whom they are.When a biopic chooses to tell/telescope a person’s whole life into a movie, from birth to death: snooze city!Good biopics include:Movies like the classic Patton(which only covers the general’s WWII years), Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (covering the years Wood spent making Bride of the Monster and Plan Nine From Outer Space)andHope and Glory(John Boorman’s autobiography of his WWII years as a pre-teen)

Meanwhile,Naked Lunchdoesn’t try and cover Burroughs’ entire life, just those New York and Africa years.(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: the book Naked Lunch is not supposed to be an autobiography, but let’s face it, the movie of Naked Lunchsort of is a biopic.)

Amadeus focuses on Mozart’s conflict with Salieri, not necessarily the great composer’s entire life.

Meanwhile, J&J gets beau coup bonus pointsfor there being a poster of Roger Corman’s “Attack of the Crab Monsters”(one of the favorite films of The National Film Board of Ivanlandia,and the subject of a forthcoming mega-post)displayed prominently in Amy Adam’s living room;as well as for its use of Dan Akroyd’s blood-splattered spoofof Julia Child’s TV show on the old SNL.

Regarding that “Attack of the Crab Monsters” poster:Why is it there?Was its placement the decision of the director, or of the production designer?Or did a lowly PA manage to sneak it in, putting it up totally expecting everyone to hate it, but that nobody really even noticed?Or could Nora Ephron be a fan of the movie?Random accident?I needs to know!

Frankly I hope the DVD has outtakes and supplemental materials regarding this, because the food porn that’s in Julia & Julieis quite fantastic, even the simple dishes.And now it's time for...An Ivanlandia Bonus Recipe!!!

Now, you’re supposed to dry fresh fish, and although the basa fillets were moist—not dripping or anything—I didn’t dry them:I wanted to use the fish’s moisture to adhere the flakes to it; I didn’t want to make a thick batter (like something with milk, flour and/or eggs) that would get heavy and overpower the fish.

(As much as I love thick-crusted fried food, that sort of batter-frying should really only be used on cheap cuts—why hide the flavor of a good piece of flesh, whether fish, fowl, beef, pork, long pig or dog, under a thick crust?)

I sprinkled the spices over both sides of the fillets, then pressed them into the plate of Panko flakes, making sure there was a thin coating across all the fish.

Meanwhile I put a frying pan on medium high heat and added3 tablespoons of butter1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic (in garlic oil)

Once the butter and garlic was melted and sizzling, I added the fish, pushing the excess butter-garlic around the fillets. Occasionally, I rotated the pan to make sure the heat was even.

As the fish sizzled, I added some more spices on top, leaving a little to add to the fillets after I flipped them.

Once the edges of the fillets had turned white, it was time to flip.

After I flipped the fish, I sprinkled the last of spices on the cooked side.

Let it cook for about 3 minutes, but the best way to tell it’s done is if your fork goes through the fish easily.

Once my fork easily penetrated the fillets, I turned the heat off, but didn’t take the fillets out of the pan or moved the pan off the burner, letting the ambient heat work a little more on the fish (for about 2 or 3 minutes, as I finished plating the rest of our meal, a salad and some breadsticks I made by thinly slicing some tandoori nan flatbread and twice-toasting them in the toaster oven).

Plate the fish, sprinkle with lemon. Eat.

DEE-LISH!

(And the day after that, I made Korean scallion pancakes with shrimp; substituting the Korean staple of kim-chi with celery, bell pepper, a dash of hot crushed red pepper and mushrooms—make sure everything is chopped well—also DEE-LISH!)

2 comments:

It pains us to picture the great Czar of Ivanlandia sitting in a theater watching this movie.

For true lovers of Mozart, the movie AMADEUS is an annoyance. It paints the great genius as a cartoon character. It focuses on a minor subplot in the composer's life. It popularized his music through unfaithful performances, and for all the wrong reasons. Biopic? More like BIOSHIT.

We'll catch the new Streep flick when it hits Netflix and report back.

"Today on the 4:30 Movie, Godzilla Vs. Cthulhu!"

That was my original idea for the title of this blog, a sort of summation of nearly everything I'd ever wanted cinematically: regularly playing on the ABC Channel 7 4:30 movie--or on WOR-TV Channel 9's 4 O'Clock Movie--the greatest monster movie in the universe, and incredible combo of miniatures, men in suits and stop motion, with entire continents destroyed!

But then there was a coup d'etat, and Tzar Ivan I of Ivanlandia took charge.